Depending on the consonant before the ending adjectives can be divided into two groups:

1. hard group:

   the hard consonant before -ий ending: добрий (kind), червоний (red), чистий (clean), низький (short);

   all the possessive adjectives: мамин (mother's), батьків (father's);

2. soft group:

   the soft consonant before -ій, синій (dark blue), ранній (early), колишній (former, ex), справж ній (true);

   adjectives with -їй ending: безкраїй (immense, endless).

3. and a special group of adjectives with -ций ending, which is a part of -лиций (“лице” means “face”): груглолиций (round-faced), блідолиций (pale-faced).

Read more about adectives →

The noun (іменник [i'mɛn:ɪk]) — is the main part of speech and it is the basis of Ukrainian grammar. Ukrainian nouns have three genders, they can be singular and plural and what is more important they have seven cases. Unlike English they do not have articles.

Depending on the noun's gender, number or case the other parts of speech (i.e. adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, numerals and verbs) will change.

For example:

Цей чоловік кладе книжку на стіл. — This man is putting (puts) a book on the table.

What we have here is the main noun “чоловік” (a predicate) which is masculine, singular and in nominal case (answers the question: “who?”). According to this we have to change the pronoun and the verb.

Let's talk about the genders

There are three of them:

1. Masculine (чоловічий рід).

2. Feminine (жіночий рід).

3. Neuter (середній рід).

Read more about genders →